[betterunix2]

Would you rather have a government agency assign credit scores? The abuses would be rampant. Right now there is one party openly pushing to restrict voting access to people who are likely to vote for the other party, and a few years ago that same party enacted a new tax code that almost surgically penalized the residents of states that supported the other party; do you really trust such politicians to set up a fair credit rating system? I can see the headlines already: "SCOTUS rules 6-3 in favor of GOP effort to depress credit scores in Democrat-leaning cities," or perhaps, "Northeast states fear wave of foreclosures following GOP overhaul of credit score bureau," or maybe, "Whistleblower: President pressured credit rating agency to attack CNN, NYT reporters."

Equifax and the other ratings agencies have plenty of problems, but none of those problems are solved by having the government run things and many new problems would be introduced.

[ClumsyPilot]

Then why is the SEC public, it could arbitrarily issue fines and fuck with the share price of any company that didnt donate to your party, maybe it should be private too?

[betterunix2]

Different role, different scope, different situation. The SEC has limited power to target individuals compared to a credit rating agency. It would be a scandal to politicize the SEC, but it would not be the sort of nightmare that a politicized credit rating agency could become.

It is also worth pointing out that both the credit ratings and audits of publicly traded corporations are conducted by private-sector companies, not government agencies. The SEC's primary role is to ensure that the rules are being followed, which is a straightforward law-enforcement/regulatory role that makes sense for a government agency.

[Frost1x]

>Would you rather have a government agency assign credit scores? The abuses would be rampant.

Do you think the abuses are any less rampant when power is privatized? The main problem that would be solved by a government institution is a pathway for transparency and citizen recourse against questionable practices. It's admittedly not a lot of transparency or accountability but it can be far more than currently exists.

People talk about government corruption and sure, there's lots of it, but there's just as much if not more private corruption hidden behind privacy protection veils. At the very least, there is some degree of transparency with the government and we can in theory hold them accountable with explicit rights granted to us (more-so than private institutions).

I cannot hold these private institutions that have gamed the system so far they're beyond my grasp accountable for their actions. Ill start a credit rating agency tomorrow and compete with Equifax, Transunion, and Experian so through market forces of competition I can fix these problems! Consumers and market forces will fix these problems! Yea, right, give me a break.

This whole government bad, private good, anti-communism/socialism/whatever argument has grown tiring because we're at a point now where you can chuck private institutions in the same gutter of corruption as different systems of government. We played that fiddle and gave private institutions the benefit and here we are, with rampant corruption in concentrated pockets of business as well, governing our daily lives with little oversight or means of recourse beyond avoiding the system or hoping some competitor can actually change things.

Privatization works well when you can actually hold institutions accountable, when there are competitors that actually compete and give consumers the option to vote with their wallets. When that doesn't exist, it's far worse than a US government agency managing it. It might be cheaper but there's probably a good undesirable reason it's cheaper than a public institution that isn't related to poor management and basic optimization practices to improve efficiency. Those efficiency gains probably exist because the institution is doing something it shouldn't be doing, focusing on profit margins over implications on the consumer.

[specialist]

Yes and: Since contractors aren't subject to FOIA, privatization is a time honored strategy to move activities off book.

[betterunix2]

Did I say anything about communism? No, that is what you brought up. I mentioned possible abuses that are specific to a government agency, abuses that are the result of politics.

There is no reason to think that a government agency would be any more transparent than Equifax et al. are right now. Consumers have the right to receive a free credit reporter from these companies, and the right to dispute information in that report (also free). Maybe there is a need to adjust the regulations in order to combat particular abuses or problems that are happening right now. That does bring up the question of what specific abuses you would like to see fixed -- you did not actually mention anything in particular that Equifax is doing or how a government agency would avoid such a problem.

The previous president spent 4 years trying to use government agencies to punish political opponents, and just before leaving office he filled those agencies with loyalists in an attempt to sabotage his successor, all without regard for the effect such actions might have on the public. Those are forms of abuse that is specific to government agencies and it would be a disaster if it happened at a credit rating agency. This is not an argument that the government is always worse than the private sector; it is an argument that when it comes to something like credit scores the government should not be in charge.